Hyderabad: Human trafficking is on the rise in tribal areas in undivided Adilabad district with hardened criminal gangs luring women with jobs and marriage offers from grooms in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan. Families that are poor, illiterate and non-nuclear with more girls than boys in the household, are being targeted. In the last two years, 46 women from the area have gone missing and the police has identified several women traffickers in Adilabad who are responsible for most of the cases.
Senior advocate A. Ramya Kumari, founder of Protection for Human Rights Association, said that a majority of the women missing cases in Adilabad district were not even being reported. “Many such cases have come to our notice through our field work. In most of them, agents have lured the family members of victims on the pretext of good jobs and marriages. But, majority of victims are being sold in the business of flesh trade in Mumbai and other parts of the country. Only in a handful of such cases, we found that the women did get married to grooms in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh,” she said.
With the dropping sex ratio in Rajasthan (928:1,000) and Madhya Pradesh (931:1,000), the grooms from these states are seeking brides from other states, including Andhra Pradesh and Telangana state. Several women have been rescued from Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh. Telangana State Women Commission chairperson Tripurana Venkataratnam said, “Investigation by the police revealed trafficking to Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra. Illiteracy and poverty in tribal areas in Adilabad are encouraging human trafficking.”
She said the traffickers were targeting married and unmarried women from Gondi tandas. “To worsen matters, Gondi women know only Gondi language and few can understand Hindi or Telugu. So even communicating for help becomes impossible. We registered a suo motu case after which the police geared up investigation in five cases,” she said. After being rescued by the police, some of the girls said it wasn’t their families but they themselves who had fallen in love with the agents and run away from home. “But the real shocker”, said Ms. Ramya Kumari “was the large number of women who were willingly handed over to agents by their kin.”
